31 days – fall 2013 – budgeting 101

When I think of our budget, I try not to think of it as a negative thing. If you’re anything like me, when you don’t write something down, the chances of finding it again are pretty slim.

And who wants that to happen with the money you’ve worked hard for? Like John Maxwell says, “A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.”

Our budget isn’t that complicated and anyone could probably create one similar with pen and paper.

We first started out by writing out our earned income {because you shouldn’t spend more than you earn… am I right?}.

And then we subtracted all of our recurring items/bills like tithe, car loans, school loans, utilities, etc.

We then estimated things like groceries and gas, things that could be vary from month to month, but still needed a cap so we didn’t overspend and would help us stay on track. And we subtracted again.

After we did these steps and saw how much we had left over, we decided to put X amount in savings. We treat it like a bill/payment so we aren’t tempted to spend it.

Once all of those items were taken care of, we then added in fun categories for things like travel, date nights, spending money, etc. Note that we did this AFTER we decided how much we wanted to put towards savings.

And once we both looked it over and agreed, we put into action.

And our first month we only overspent $3000!

Just kidding. Because that would totally defeat our budgeting efforts.